Central Desktop announced today a new collaborative framework that allows people to open, save, edit and co-author files stored in the cloud directly from Microsoft Office.
Adding to the services are new features that allow multiple people to co-edit and co-author Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Central Desktop maintains that the added features eliminate the need to upgrade to Microsoft Sharepoint or Microsoft Office 2010. The new features will be available in June.
We see Central Desktop as part of a new wave. Co-editing is the next step to real-time collaboration, fitting with activity streams, co-commenting and such services as the ability to create individual rich profiles.
Co-editing served as a hallmark feature of Google
Wave upon its introduction. Novell Pulse offers integration with Google Wave to offer the co-editing capabilities.
Cubetree may best express the value of enriched co-editing. Yesterday, SuccessFactors bought the startup for a deal valued at $50 million.
